Patterns in new Video games - Pros & Con (content)

[naossano]

We have a pretty effective thread concerning the critics, the players, the publishers & devellopers here :
http://www.nma-fallout.com/showthread.php?200977-The-state-of-videogames

But i was wondering what is the opinion from other old gamers about the games themselves, not the behaviors surrounding those.
Personnally i have my own gripe concerning features that i tend to see a lot more than before and that i am pretty uncomfortable with.
(got ten years the same computer. Since last years, i am overwhelmed with the games released in the meantime and after)

- The Dumbing down of writting, dialogs, quests, worldbuilding, choices, consequences, mature contents etc...
It was discussed to death, so i won't expand on it, but i didn't forgot it, as it is quite crucial. I don't know anyone that loves to be considered brainless by publishers.

- The DLCs
Until recently, when you bought a game, you were supposed to buy it full. Sometime, the game was so much a success that it allowed the release of ONE add-on. That add-on generally cost less that the main game and added like 30% of the whole game content, faithfull to the lore, and even sometimes needed. For instance, i couldn't imagine Age of Empires 1 without Rise Of Rome, and yet, didn't complained when it didn't existed yet. Now, there are tons of DLCs, released separated and on different schedule, so you never know when the game is full. Also, the cumulative of DLCs is sometimes more expensive that the main game. Those are often short or useless, like a new hat for your protagonist. Sometimes, they can hardly be accepted as canon, like Mothership Zeta or Operation Anchorage for Fallout 3, Tower Pack & Devellopper Pack for Metro Last Light. Not only they don't release an unique pack, but the average quality of DLCs is poor at best. So it feel a complete waste. As a player that usually want to do everything, see everything and hear anything on games/fictional universe, i think the DLCs will make me abandon some franchises altogether...

- Solo Games Online. Like Diablo 3, Starcraft 2. When i buy a game, i want to own it, not pay the right to play it when the server is up AND my connection is working. It seems more like a rent that a buy. Also, some DRM that still need internet after you intalled your game.

- Increasing tendency of make all the game look the same, with FPS perspective, "RPG elements" (mainly crafting & XP), Open-World, multiplayer features for games intended for solo (like Max Payne 3 for instance). In other medium, you have different genre, but not in mainstream video-games ? Is it so hard to consider that not all players are the same and those need different kind of games ?

- I am maybe biased, since i recently spent a lot of time completing Fallout 3, but it got me sick of Open-World & wide-open sandbox, which mainly means quantity over quality, doing random stuff over relevant stuff, facing generic stuff instead of specific stuff. I kinda liked my first encounters with the genre, while playing GTA 3 and his stand-alone spin-off, but those games tends to get old pretty quick and feel like a waste of time. Now, every mainstream games advertize it as a quality...

- Fast-travel in Open-world games. Sute, it is convenient but... How unimaginative... Not only it gives excuses to devellopers to scrap any believable way to travel quicker, like car, horses, publics transports, rare portals, but break the whole point of big gameworld. As you can instantly travel to your big main HQ, there is no point in looking for secondary shelters, and you would never use them anyway. Also you don't really think of where put locations, as the player won't never care of proximity of locations to each others.

- Quest Marker. Sudenly, you magically know where the objectives are. That magical knowledge is often never explained and allow to scrap any clues of where to find your mcguffin.

- Auto-Healing in FPS. So know, you are an immortal being, that can face thousands of grunt without being afraid of your health. You can argue that instant healing items were convenient and almost broke suspension of disbelief. But that new feature, break a core aspect of FPS. You have to watch your armor, your ammo and your health. Now, i simply don't care of being hurt, as i know that, when the fight will be over, i will suffer no penalty agains't the upcoming ennemies.

- Autosave. I am not agains't it, if there is a way to manually save as well, but i am not fond of the game choosing instead of me when i should save. I can somehow understand it for survival games, as it had some additionnal fear. Since it would involve some tedious tasks, you have an additionnal reason for not wanting to die. But outside of that genre, it serves no purpose and it break immersion, as you have to repeat many times the same story part, in order to succeed. I am not sure i will finish Fable because of this, as i won't be able to apply my policy of save-before-talking-to-any-npc. In that game, savegame don't include your progress on a chapter. So if you leave the game for any reason, it's like you didn't played in the first place.

- It's cool to advertize a game as RPG, while it is not, so the general knowledge of what an RPG is, will become non-existent.


On the other hand, i tend to enjoy :

- More interactions on FPS, like talking with NPCs, doing siquequests, crafting weapons. In the end, these are still F.P.S. But it is nice to do more than shooting. Those features were lacking in 90s FPS games. But once again, there are still FPS, not RPG...

- More emphasis on stealth on new games. I notably fond of the Metro series, that is allowed to be played as a dumb FPS, but really rewards the subtle and pacifist approach.

- More voice over. I could live without it. As a matter of fact, i acquired recently many games that have no voices at all, like Shadowrun or underail. But considering all the time spent playing 80s & 90s games where the voices were pretty rare, it is good to have a game fully voiced for time to time, especially if the writting and actors are great. Although i prefer having a player-character with no voice...

- Freedom of Camera in top down perspective game. It wasn't the only reason i liked it, but it was one of the selling point of Myth 1 & 2. Being able to rotate camera, change angle, zoom, dezoom and other movement added a real enjoyment in those tactical games, allowing you to choose the way you wanted to see the battleground withouth betraying the core gameplay. It is kind of cool to have many modern top down games keeping that feature. On the other hand, it unfortunatly is more suited for 3D than sprites.

- Modding. Hell Yeah... Especially considering the horrible quality of many DLCs and the greater skills of players, those mods tend to had great re-playability, correct some gamebreaking features, and respect the Interplay slogan. Mods are made by gamers for gamers. Also it is unfortunate that great modders are not allowed to get money for their work...

I don't know in which category i should put it, since it is not a pattern at all...

- When i played SOF 1 & 2, i was so impressed by the work done in the localization of damage on the bodies, the ability to hurt dead, to have ennemies with missing limbs (because of you) yet still alive, follow the trail of blood left by the ennemies you hurt, the ability to take hostage, disarm when shooting on the gun, move the bodies, or the unconscious, have those unconscious wake up after a while, that i fought it was a revolution and would become the new norm for every single FPS. We are like 10-15 years later and most FPS involving humans opponements that came after feel like very downgraded in terms of realisms, possibilities and enjoyement in term of gameplay. It's almost like every single video game devellopers in the world seems to forget those features exists, or purposly want us to forget about them. It is not only possible, but it was done more than ten years ago, for god's sake. And yet, they advertize their game as modern. I much prefer having rich gameplay option, than high res or useless shadow, that you don't spend your whole time admiring... (pure gameplay opinion. SOF writting is not worth many praise, albeit not being horrible)

PS: Ii tend to consider old what is before 2000 and modern what is after 2000 as it feels more convenient. But one could consider a different year.

 

[Grievous]

Most of my gripes actually comes as a result of the current state of popular gaming tastes. I mean considering how most new titles are designed and marketed with the trendy reception in mind, it's hard to dissociate a game's features from the audience it was designed for in the first place.

Modern games' method of storytelling for example is something that I'm not sure whether the fault lies more with the actual writers and designers and publishers, or, is it because the gamers, journalists and media that have set their bars of minimal standards so low that they continuingly shower praises for something that is barely above ground of mediocrity.

And at times it is hard to keep a straight face when you see how Journey was game of the year at one point, but then The Last of Us takes the new mantle during the next.
You just never know how the modern taste is going to fluctuate from one year to the next, and as such, harder to argue merits or flaws of a game and its mechanics when you see just how flimsy the same set of tools can be applied efficiently in the hands of one developers, and clumsily at the hands of another.
The fact that the vast gaming audience has a tendency of misplacing praises and criticism from one game to another doesn't help it, either.

So you'll have to excuse me for not finding it easy to reply to this topic, to give my opinions about "games themselves" without having "the behaviors surrounding those" always lingering behind.
If I may say so myself, the fact that you mention DLCs and the "increase tendencies" of making games looking the same for example, are they a result of actual game designer's will, or its popularity with the mass crowd, or both?

But let's see if I can try staying on topic without commenting on the influence from the industry itself.

Features that I wish to be refined or removed altogether:

- Karma choices. Specifically, the very basic handling of positive and negative behaviors.
It's not that I dislike having to make choices, but rather the insignificance it represents when you consider how often the actual design makes it so that it is Always more favorable to perform positive behaviors rather than negative ones. Performing negative actions always yield for the 'dark and violent' path and ending speeches, whereas performing positive actions is always greatly rewarded with new unique weapons, powers, allies, and overall best endings and even highest trophy/achievement ratings.
The fact is that there's almost no incentive to pursue the negative path when the game's is designed in such a way that it is always more favorable to the positive outcome instead. Telling a NPC to go jump off a bridge and die is a dreadful action to take for a player's perspective and not as a moral impact as it would have probably liked to pretend itself to be, as you'll lose out valuable items or other rewards if you take such action, and perhaps only worthwhile if this is your second playthrough and you wish to quickly skip some of the content.

Some rare exceptions do occur where the player is rewarded as equally regardless of the choice of behavior he chooses to take, therefor rewarding an incentive at making multiple playthroughs, mainly because the player is encouraged to actually play as he or she wishes and each consequence is as viable and favored as the other.
An example would be Alpha Protocol (incidentally developed by Obsidian, and released the same year as New Vegas; needless to say it wasn't exactly as polished as it deserves to be), a game where behaving negatively to other NPCs can attain you bonuses that you wouldn't be able to gain had you behaved positively, and vice versa.
Best of all is that the game never punishes you for taking one path instead of another.
Although of course it is always more favorable to keep the NPCs alive rather than shooting them in the face whenever you get the opportunity, but still, it's a more refined method of displaying karma choices than most title around had done.

Which kind of leads to my next gripe ...

- Games that are openly about 'games', and games that mock the concept of choice in games.
We're seeing this trend more and more recently, where games contain a story specifically made just so it can make the player take a step back and ponder about the meaning and implication it is suggesting and that the player to take very seriously. From Bioshock's "would you kindly always obey what I command you to do" to Portal's "test subject gaining free will and decides leaving the test area", from Spec Ops' "I had no choice but to shoot people because this is a shooter" to Far Cry 3's "I enjoy shooting people in games because that's all the games are thriving and good at", from Bioshock Infinite's "you've already played this game before and you won't admit it" to The Stanley Parable's "you're going to play a game that will seem like an endless experience, except when it isn't, and then you will believe that there is a definitive end to it, except there isn't, until we say so".

None of these were bad ideas per se, but I dislike the intentionally in-your-face approach they wish to convey the what-could-have-been subtle comments on game designs. The problem is that they directly address these issues by pulling the actual game's story and stretching it in many ways imaginable Just So they can get their point across.
As a result, it's hard to give a damn about the game's actual story, as all you can think of is the whole meta approach they went with, and all of it just to complement a banal gameplay to begin with.

Again, I wish they would take their time and refine the game's actual narrative and narration first before they blast all the subtexts all over the front page.

I mean it's both hilarious and sad to consider that Saints Row IV of all things actually done a better job of being a game about games than what those huge critically successful game achieved at.

- Expansions made into sequels, and minor contents sold as expansions instead.
The concept of DLC isn't such a bad thing when you consider it as a mere digitally exclusive method of downloading and playing Expansion Sets for modern games, rather than manufacture new manuals and cd cases and the likes all the time.
Except this trend went sideways when companies find it adequate to sell less than a handful of hours of content at high price tag, and keeping the actual expansion worthy content into next year's full fledged release title with full price tag again.

The worst part about this is when you consider that some of the DLC contents actually could have been a strong and bold entry for a full fledged expansion, instead now boiled to another item I reluctantly throw into the basket of "wasted potentials". All this due to lack of sufficient development time and or budget being stripped away for multiple short DLCs rather than focused on one big entity.
Fallout 3's The Pitt instantly springs to mind as one of those wasted potentials reduced to mere handful of hours, I could have gone well without the need of Point Lookout and Broken Steel for example and shuffle the budget and development time into one single combined effort.

- Hard difficulty. Or specifically the fact that it does not make a game challenging. It does not introduce more rules or reinforce certain methods of play, instead it just turns everything up to eleven and call it a day.
Rare and few are games that either introduces or disables certain mechanics while keeping the challenges fair and not make the experience a grind of applying exploits.
Unfortunately for the most part there is no alternative other than selecting Hard difficulty if one doesn't wish to play the game's standard difficulty when it feels too easy and unchallenging. And yet playing on hard tends to make the game's mechanics and flaws all the more apparent, downright making some mechanics useless, and evidently not a way which the designer envisioned its players to engage in.

As an alternative, players can impose challenges and limitations upon themselves, such as only using a specific list of items and ignoring others, but even then it soon becomes apparent that it would have been much better had the game been designed with such mechanics in mind in the first place.

Even if the game designer wishes to avoid making the player feel the need to start the game all over if the conditions aren't met, say for example in a survival game the player reaches a certain point where his lack of proper item management bites him in the face, instead of effectively punishing the player's entire progress up until that point by making it null, perhaps the game's progression can diverge into another unique path, one that is only available to those who had met the poor requirement to begin with.
Kind of like the unique speeches only available when the player has a low amount of intelligence in Fallout, but in a wider proportion.

Well I feel as if my post is currently long enough as it is, especially considering the currently low response time of this message box and the fact that it constantly freezes every fifteen seconds as it autosaves, making it ironically impossible for me to continue writing further, as I was about to finally dip into the "pro" opinions.

 

[naossano]

I am not intending to contradict you in anyway, i just want to clarify my intent when i created this thread.

I am not agains't talking about the people making games and those talking about them. I just think that the thread i provided the link in my first post already handles that topic in an interesting way, and i very don't mind it being extended, but i also won't mind talking about games themselves, outside of their making context. I don't mind talking about how, as just customers not necessary used on how the market works, we handle these contents.

Also, i am talking more about flaws than praising qualities, as i am naturally inclined to talk about what is wrong than what is right. It's like i am saying it when i am in pain, than saying "Hey ! Everything fine today !". But in the other hand, i doesn't have to be complains only, and if you think some of the things were improved for the better, feel free to say it too. (not an obligation)

It stroke me harder personnally, since i started playing early, even before windows existed (We had an amstrad then), then we got a computer with windows, and changed computer every few years. Then in somewhere between 2000 and 2004, i stopped uprgrading my computer, and only played games from that eras and retro-games than where released far before but that didn't tried at the time. Last year, i changed computer, so i could suddenly discover many games released between 2004 & 2014, and those new patterns became VERY apparent, as it was like i jumped ten years in time.

I am not agains't change. I even think that the games changed far less in the 2000s than in the 1990s. It was a huge evolutions in that decade. Try to compare Wolfenstein3D and Half-Life, Wasteland 1 & Fallout 1, Total Annhilation & Starcraft. Not even comparing with what we had before Wolfenstein, Wasteland & Total Annhilation, and the games in the interval that saw some changes themselves. Those changes were huge in gameplay AND graphics. In comparisons, recent decades saw less changes, in gameplay, and even in graphics, but added some consistent patterns. Some patterns that i like, (mods for instance) other that i hate (Most DLCs, for instance). I am wondering if there are other patterns you noticed, and what you think of them.

PS: Not saying there was no innovation in the last decades. The continuous 3D perspective gameworld was pretty hard to achieve in a satisfying way in the 90s. Yet, it doesn't mean that it should replace everything else today.

 

[Ilosar]

- Games that are openly about 'games', and games that mock the concept of choice in games.
We're seeing this trend more and more recently, where games contain a story specifically made just so it can make the player take a step back and ponder about the meaning and implication it is suggesting and that the player to take very seriously. From Bioshock's "would you kindly always obey what I command you to do" to Portal's "test subject gaining free will and decides leaving the test area", from Spec Ops' "I had no choice but to shoot people because this is a shooter" to Far Cry 3's "I enjoy shooting people in games because that's all the games are thriving and good at", from Bioshock Infinite's "you've already played this game before and you won't admit it" to The Stanley Parable's "you're going to play a game that will seem like an endless experience, except when it isn't, and then you will believe that there is a definitive end to it, except there isn't, until we say so".

None of these were bad ideas per se, but I dislike the intentionally in-your-face approach they wish to convey the what-could-have-been subtle comments on game designs. The problem is that they directly address these issues by pulling the actual game's story and stretching it in many ways imaginable Just So they can get their point across.
As a result, it's hard to give a damn about the game's actual story, as all you can think of is the whole meta approach they went with, and all of it just to complement a banal gameplay to begin with.

Oh, this so much, I get so annoyed when devs do that. Oh look, we said the game was about choice but actually the player dpesn't have any. Har har, how clever, now rub it in my face for the rest of the game, as if forcing the player down a path is some kind of goddamn acheivement. Bioshcok 1 did that well enough, but the others? Not so much. I'd also add Dragon Age 2, which does it in a friggin RPG, you know, the genre where player choice is supposed to reign supreme. But na, we want our story to be edgy, so nothing you do matters. Mass Effect 3 suffered from that a bit too.

That being said, I honestly don't think games are headed for any sort of downward spiral. There are good and bad games now, just as there were good and bad games then. Some genres have more of a spotlight depending on the period, of course; for example, classic RTS is kinda hurting, making way for DOTA-likes. Not too long ago ye olde schoole top-down RPGs had a hard time, but now with Kickstarter and such it's coming back with a vengeance, and there are 3D RPGs that ended up being really good (The Witcher, Dragon Age Origins, Fallout: New Vegas). Doom-like fast-paced FPSes fell by the wayside, but they're being steadily revived now. And you get new games that are genre-breaking too, like Dark Souls.

We also see the rise of indie developpers alongside the big AAA powerhouses, and while indies have their own problems (just take a look at Steam Greenlight or Early Access to find out how much crap is shoveled there), they're also more than capable of pumping out creative, well crafted titles in a mind-boggling variety of genres, something that couldn't really be done before. And it's not like big studios can't release great games once in a while: Assassins's Creed is derivative but remains fun, Skyrim is honestly really nice, Deus Ex: HR was pretty fantastic, Blizzard is still making pretty amazing titles, so on and so forth.

As for DLCs, honestly it's just a matter of who does it. DLCs can be 15$ map packs for Call of Duty, or they can be 10$, 15-something hour new adventures like those for New Vegas or Borderlands 2. Just like I'm pretty sure back in ye olden days you could find expansions that didn't justify their 30$ price tags. Ultimately it's up to the customer to decide what's best for him/her.

 

[UniversalWolf]

I don't mind DLC, because as I've gotten older I've gotten more patient. I simply wait until the full game with all it's DLC comes out as a single package. And goes on sale.

My only other gripe is that because so many more people play games now compared to the number who played games, say, 20 years ago, many more dumb people play games. Dumb people need games too, but there are so many of them their influence sometimes spills over to impact me. For instance, Zenimax/Bethesda buying Fallout and turning it into a game for dumb people.

 

[mobucks]

I like the trend of rogue-like likes being made nowadays. Permadeath, random world gens. Those seem to be the only recent games I play anymore. Everything else, even the hits, I can;t get into. People really liked the witcher 2 and Human revolution, I couldnt play more than 15 minutes of either.

 

[naossano]

Most of the time, i also get the DLCs included in the Game or first the Game, then the season pass including all DLCs. (almost never buy the year of release)

But it still bother me that they sell of these stuff separatly. Also, even if you take all of them at once, it still means that all these stuff aren't always very cohesive. It would pays off more in it was one big add-on, than multiple little DLCs not connected to each other.
Even when those show some efforts, like Fo3 DLCs, there is a feeling of half-finished products.
There are also DLCs that cannot really considered canon, like simulation DLCs. Those who got the Develloper pack and Tower Pack for Metro Light would know that i mean.
The apocalypse happened in 2013, everything on the main game shows that ressources are scarce and poor quality. Yet, the DLC bring incredible simulation, that is not only working, but deals with post-war monsters. Clearly not canon content.
Also, there are DLCs like, 1-2 straightforward level, a new hat, one skill. Canon or not, it is far too little to justify an additionnal buying. There are mods outthere far more finished.
There is also the quantity of DLCs that in the end, add a lot, but you need like 30 DLCs to get the full content.
Take Street fighter IV for instance :
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/18254/

I also heard some guy saying that you have to pay a DLC to get the japanese voices for the last Final Fantasy...
A... DLC... For...Original... Voice...
Choosing the langage shouldn't involve an additionnal fee.
It should be included in every games.

So clearly, they sell DLCs for things that should be included in the main game in the first place...

Even if i almost never buy separate DLCs, i still mind...

 

[DarkCorp]

My personal gripes with todays games.

1. FPS/Open World/blah blah. To me, its a design concept that is inherently flawed because too much effort is required to make it good. Because of FPS, everything has to be scaled realistically in the players eyes, this runs the gamut from vehicles/weapons/distance/amount of crap in a room/etc. Not only does graphics take up a huge part of development but there has to be serious focus on how long the game can be because the simple act of travelling over realistic distances, can be very time consuming. Same can be said for the clearing of rooms/buildings/level/etc. In the same vein, graphics also effect how level design and problem solving is done. Also being FPS, the player sees everything so now, you have a lot of open space with a lot of nothing. Instead of relying on imagination, everything has to be spoon fed to you.

2. Dumbing Down. The biggest gripe, that essentialy led me to NMA, was that fucking EVERY game these days is all about accessibility to the largest possible audience. So not only does a games mechanics have to be easily understood, but the same has to be of content. Much like the movie rating situation, execs want to maximize their profit margins by drawing the biggest audience possible. Problem with the audiene/people, they tend to have a very diverse moral, religious, political, social, etc, views. In essence, in an attempt to maximise profits, we end up having to create a game/movie that has to cater to everyone/offend as few people as possible. This usually results in the product being made being excessively generic with special effects as its primary drawing point. Also, because the product being developed relies heavily on special effects AKA 'shiny', the budget tends to balloon out of control, forcing the execs to, again, gain as wide of a market share as possible in order to recoup development costs/make a profit.

3. DLC. It might be the conspiracist in me but, from the above and knowing executive thinking, its a terrible idea although it sounds great. Essentially, DLCs work the same way as drugs do, after the initial high/AKA the main game, the addict wants more. The Pusher/game developer, provides the addict with slivers of content, usually generic and fucking retarded like special edition weapons that only serve to boost egos since their actual effectiveness is limited due to balance issues, to keep them hooked. Now, there is occasionally story related content thats actually important. However, honestly, if it is that important to the understanding of the story, then it should have been part of the main game, or, handled in the games prequel or sequel. There really should be no reason to just take our money while giving us table scraps. I would trust a company more, if they promised a better product in a FULL sequel/prequel than slives of either.

Also, it creates a terrible precedent. How do we, as gamers/consumers, know for a fact that DLC was TRULY not able to be included in the main game? Also, how do we know for sure that the developers of a certain game truly did their best in providing as much content per dollar ratio as possible? Atleast, during the pre DLC days, I knew what I bought was what the developers intended for me to experience. If there was extra content, it would have to be saved for the next game. To me, the lack of DLCs, force the developers to make the game as good as possible without relying on a 'we will fix the problems with a DLC later', attitude.

4. Online play. Totally disagree as well. If I buy the game, I play it whenever I damn well please, unless its specifically designed for multiplayer only. I don't know why I need a steam account and have to log in when I just want to play a game thats already fucking installed.

 

[Grievous]

- Regarding DLCs and the evil corporations behind it.
As odd as it may sound, I think that Story content based dlcs are the most dangerous types of money spending/wasting dlcs around.
Usually most dlcs will be about simple trivial things costing a couple of bucks, but then comes a brand new exciting chapter on the latest game you bought! new backstories to uncover! play as your favorite NPC and get His version of the main game's event! ... I won't lie, at times it does genuinely sound exciting.
But the truth is behind that ten/fifteen buck price tag lies -for the great majority- a ridiculously lackluster effort, not to mention the usually short length. Marketing will claim that their content is fifteen hours long, as their finest testers have performed, on company record! But then that average youtuber who records and comments on his first playthrough would clock in under four hours, loading time included.
Exaggerations aside, the point remains: with the average item and clothing dlcs, you at least 'know' that's what you're going to get, there's generally no surprise behind what is written in the description box. But for additional story contents? boy does the description all sound so vague, no just in length to price ratio, but the actual description of said content is just way-off the truth at times. What do they mean by exploring new locations? are they as rich and dense as those you have in the main game, or are those linear paths that propels you from beginning to end with no sidetracking or replay value? What do they mean by exciting new plot revelations that all fans must see, if it was so important, why wasn't it in the main game in the first place?
Sometimes reviewers will all appear to have this radiant grin that tears their face in two over the sheer greatness of this new dlc, but then how come so often do I scratch my head wondering if the reviewer had a more refined copy of the game to play with than the one I have?

And the thing is the market Knows that there Is an audience for such sort of thing, that there is a crowd hungry for every bit of new lore or characterization for their favorite titles.

On the other hand there are those story dlcs that Do fulfill the exciting promises it claims to bring, and Do satisfy you as a gamer/consumer/fan ... except when there's this lingering thought that the overall product was harmed in its creative process because of limitations that the term 'dlc' brings, compare to its mightier brethren, that of 'expansions' or 'sequels'.
Some story based dlcs do indeed have huge potentials at being a top tier product, if only it wasn't limited and hampered by the necessarily tight budget and production schedule to begin with. And so at the end the fans are left craving for 'more' and still unsatisfied by lack of proper 'justice' done to their favorite characters and settings.

Overall it does become a lot more cost-effective to just wait for the complete/ultimate/game of the year edition, that way you can pretend to yourself that it was all part of the same package to begin with and its quality and flaws even itself out with the main game's content.
But speaking of which ...


- Regarding complete/ultimate/game of the year editions, and 'gamey' in-game notifications as a whole.
This is a bit of a minor case and extreme situations such as my example are rare for the most part, but I think it's worth a mention.
In Fallout New Vegas, after spending your first half hour or so with Doc Mitchell, you're finally allowed to open the door and head into the game's first settlement as the game opens up immediately right afterwards, and all the numerous NPCs are out there waiting for you to interact with them, more importantly it's going to be your first scenic moment with the game's main location, the Mojave.
And it is a good view that you've been given, along with the brooding soundtrack playing along, you're given a nice moment to soak the moment in and feeling happy already for the interactive adventure you're heading into.

That is unless you're playing the Ultimate Edition.
In which case, even before the sun stops shining its white light on the Courier's eyes, you're bombarded with a large amount of in-game notifications, informing you of the various clothing packs, weapons pack, ammo cap, the four new level caps you've unlocked, along with the dlc start-up quest notifications, and Then finally you can get your view on the Mojave, along with your main quest notification coming up probably last, as if it's now an incidental event compared to the shiny overpowered free weapon the Ultimate edition has generously rewarded you with.

I feel lucky that I had at least first experienced New Vegas' opening hours on the vanilla edition long before getting into the Ultimate edition, thus having got the introduction's 'proper' feel already savored.

The same situation does occur with Fallout 3's Game of the Year Edition right after you leave the Vault, but the moment feels a lot less intrusive due to the fact that even in the vanilla game itself your scenic view is rather quickly interrupted with the leveling up menu, which you can spend a rather long time in selecting skills and perks, especially if this is your first time playing. So the addition of notifications relating to new dlcs doesn't feel as much as a bother.
Although there was this story of a friend of mine who did not 'realize' what were the dlc contents exactly, so he went straight in playing Anchorage and Mothership Zeta instead thinking it was part of the narrative content, not having played the main game prior to having the Game of the Year Edition in hand to know what to tackle and what to avoid.

On the good side of things, I've played other game's complete editions where the additional dlc content are only unlocked once a particular stage of the game has been reached -such as Assassin's Creed Brotherhood- it therefor keeps an identical difficulty curve and feels a bit more seamless along with the main game.
And there were other games that simply made its dlc content integrated with the main game's experience and not treated as an optional bonus, such as with L.A. Noire, where had it not for the additional trophies/achievements, I would never have realized which chapters were dlcs to begin with.

I think that with Oblivion and Skyrim, you also couldn't access the major dlc episodes until you've spent some hours playing through the main game's content first, though I may be mistaken.

Point is that I've seen more often than not a manner of presentation which just screams more about the game I'm playing being a 'product' rather than an engaging experience.
Some of the other biggest offenders are the existence of 'Downloadable Content' or 'Online Store' options you see on the main menu of the game you just bought and installed.
Some games might not even have an 'Option' menu on the main page, but you can bet they'll make sure you know where to fetch them dlcs!

I remember a time where some games even had a 'Bonus feature' menu, and you can see how it progressively unlocks more and more content as you play through the game, or sometimes even spending in-game monetary resources to unlock new items, both the passive and active type of bonuses, from artworks to new gameplay tools.
Apparently these days in-game monetary resources is not as effective as dumping real life pennies into it instead!


- On the subject of 'dumbing down' to provide accessibility to mass audience.
Although I didn't initially wanted to comment on this, I realized that an audience's ability to prove and communicate itself to carry a vocal presence in today's digital age, is relevant on the subject of patterns in modern gaming.
As I may have previously mentioned, I'm not sure which is worse in this ongoing situation: is it the industry and the system that sticks to catering the same repetitive elements to please the large audience, or, the vocal members of this large audience itself that praises -with great thought and sincerity from their own, mind you- on the things that the industry throws at them, and thus keeping the machinery at work?
I honestly don't mind the fact that the gaming audience has an array of opinions when it comes from their own and not just repeating what the above poster already commented at, but what I don't understand is why they're simply the most easily misguided and naïve bunch whenever they've instinctively decided to gather round and praise for something which they deem revolutionary, even though it's just child's play in my view. As a result of course the industry will decide to rehash the same set of elements that have attracted a huge vocal praise in order to sustain the machinery and keep it functional. But for a person who was left unimpressed by the latest sensation? he'll have to say goodbye to any new hope for the next couple of years until another new sensation emerges.

My point is that the system will be willing, more than willing, to not handle out 'dumbed down product' IF the massive vocal and eloquent crowd wasn't hailing for more dumbed down content to begin with. This system of rules goes for a lot of things, and thus may sound a bit too obvious, but I find it nevertheless important to be aware of this fact.

On the other hand however, the industry itself does have its shares of fault, even though at times remain incomprehensible.
From my own experiences and looking at how the video game industry progressed, there seems to be a fundamental entity that is lacking: a syndicate of reviewers and gaming critics to properly drive and push and guide the medium to the right track.
See, we've had people complain about things they don't appreciate on forums, blogs, video blogs, and website reviews and articles. Everyday, all the time. But it only ever get so far. Unless a gameplay mechanic is universally panned, the studio will not see a fault to it and still deem it a necessary mechanic that leads to a successful product.
It's not worth fighting against fans of a game we find horrendous either, even if it may appear like a sane thing to perform given the right circumstances, because this will only ever get so far.
Developers willing to listen as well as taking into account the individual fan's opinion do exist, but a future product from the same developer that matches the fan's demands as well as remedying to past flaws? that don't happen all that often. But then, who gets the blame? the overall shadowy nature of who gets control over what in a game's design is still for the most part inaccessible to the public. It's also not clear most of the time what exactly does a game's creative designer and lead writer truly had delivered in the final work, reminding the fact that not all writers are game designers and not all game designers can come up with unique properties and brand new mechanics to match the full extent of a creative director's original vision.

As a result, because the production process is an area which nobody from the outside ever gets a say so, and nobody on the inside can easily discuss on the working condition to the outside, there's this fringe that has been created, but hey, who cares, tomorrow there'll be a new teaser for Bethesda's new Elder Scroll or Fallout, and we'll be back at square one where the most vocal crowd will be singing praises.
So to the eyes of whichever chairman occupies the throne at the top of the castle tower will see, it's time for another 'success'.


Incidentally this also lead to a new surge 'indie' development, but I'm personally not holding my breath for them.
Sooner or later they'll come back to the term that being an independent organization will not be enough to give them the resources to create the 'next big thing' they so wanted to achieve.

Again, my point is that it's not sufficient enough to sharpen our pen and write/comment/fight against the mass crowd for having ruined our favorite ways at playing games ...

Unless somehow that huge audience decides to gather in unison and poses a global ban on the industry until they get rid of all the 'dumb stuff'.
But I'm not holding my breath for that day to come, either.

 

[AskWazzup]

I don't really consider games to have even been in a true golden age - they began and then they fell. That's it. So all in all, as a whole they never reached any kind of greatness.

Gripes:

* Scope of unique things you can do in a game - i guess you could say, that in games like skyrim you can do all kinds of crazy stuff, like pushing people of cliffs etc, but it was never intended as a feature. It just seems like every games has a very limited scope of skills and processes you can use, and they are rehashed over and over again. In Fallout for example, you, amongst many other things, had the ability to write your own questions to the npc's, things like that surprise me in a pleasant way. In d&d games you had a bunch of skills, that one could mix and match to his own desire, while the way games have been developing, it just feels so dry and predictable, like it's back to tetris and ping pong all over.

* Hero saves something stories. Not much to write about here.

* Lack of new concepts in gameplay, game universe, the way we see and play games.

* Trying to make games realistic. It's like the horn sounds in the synthesizers of the 80' and 70', at first it seems kind of cool that you can create something pretty complicated electronically, but after some time you understand that it's a million miles away from the real thing and that there are other more interesting ways you can use electronic sinusoids. Better to use the inherent strengths of the medium than to force it to do something that it's still not.

This can go on and on, but i guess most things seem to stem from the fact that games have tight schedules , are too technically complicated in aesthetic parts and way too simple in say algorithms for A.I., and are made in a conveyor like fashion. Surely there are unique games in many aspects, but there are no "GOOD as a whole" unique games.

 

[Grievous]

* Hero saves something stories. Not much to write about here.

Yeah, about that. I've noticed that it's been trendy lately where, in order to deliver a 'unique' subversion of the trope, it's becoming more and more common to play narrative based games where there's always at least one twist revolving around the 'hero', and how he isn't what he appears to be and some other awkward situation.

I miss the days where plot twists didn't had to always revolve around the identity of our playable characters!
I mean it's almost impossible to play through a modern game without dreading that sooner or later my protagonist is going to shout out some secret agenda and backstab my favorite NPC, and then perhaps shift the perspective of the game onto a whole other character while they're at it.

Oh and, killing off our playable character has gotten real trendy and old too.

In both cases there have been interesting/worthwhile occasions that defies the norm, I won't deny that. But still, for the most part it feels redundant.

* Lack of new concepts in gameplay, game universe, the way we see and play games.

Oh hell yes.
They've been continuously talking about this whole new 'generation of gaming' where nothing ever more will limit the developers but their own imaginations!

Well so far all I see is the same old shtick, so, am I to conclude that the fault was never that of the hardware to begin with, but the developers' lack of imaginations and ideas that goes outside the box?

Not that I will approve of the new ideas that are there just for the sake of being new and original, that can be dangerous too.



In terms of positive opinions however I will say that the pursuit for the elimination of 'loading times/screens' as a whole is quite a daunting task, but a damn fine one if it succeeds soon enough.
I'll always appreciated the idea of providing a 'seamless' experience, such as when cutscene and gameplay will intertwine effortlessly, or when the player can literally go wherever he pleases without a sudden black screen loading the player's avatar to the appropriate new location.
Rockstar Games have provided neat examples by building both Max Payne 3 and Grand Theft Auto V around this idea of seamless integration.

The actual quality of the cutscenes and gameplay is another story, but the idea is there.

Other times however I would also prefer to completely rid of cinematic cutscenes that halts the player's movement and control from the ensuing action.
I believe that this medium can tell stories outside of the mere dialogues and half-baked film editing. This is an interactive medium, why isn't a player's control more valuable?

 

[AskWazzup]

I just remembered that i watched a video of system shock (a game made in 1994) and now i think my thoughts about gaming could be summerized with two "let's play" video series:

Fallout 1
System Shock





If not for the obvious hardware limitations, when i watch this, i'm thinking about how fresh and interesting they seem. And you don't even need to radically alter the games graphics to make it up to date. Let's look at Brutal Doom mod:



A few minor adjustments and the game is superior to most FPS games of today. So you don't really need heavy lifting machinery to make an adequate up to date game, you can even expand the capabilities of the open world shit using a simpler graphics engine as artistic means and thus freeing up the overhead from all the heavy calculation.

P.S. Grievous, reading your post i felt like i was in a unix bash environment. What font is that ?

 

[Grievous]

I reserve this font for my shorter comments.

Well, 'short' compared to my usual walls of text as seen above, in which case it'll positively blind any man who dares to take a glance.

No, not an Elder Scroll reference, although it could have made a lot of sense: whosoever reads a full page typed in Courier New shall walk this earth with eyes open no more!

Back on topic:
Other positive trends in modern gaming: prominence of orchestral music.

I know it may not sound much, but when you consider how the film industry has reverted itself into producing copious synthesizer nonsense or dubious orchestral work, it's quite a refreshing sight to see video game composers taking the roots and inspiration from decade old film scores and adapt it into the interactive medium, and I find such efforts commendable even if there is still a trip to go to reach the ideal state where the soundtrack blends in with the gameplay rather than being a symphony orchestra that is stalking the player.

 

[naossano]

I think when the focus was on a single story driven addon, it worked better as all the work were focused on that one.
I'll take Starcraft Broodwar, for instance, in which it had 3 new campaigns like the original had 3 campaigns.

But even with big content addon, you have to wonder if they chose to make it considering the success of the main game, or if they intended it in the first place.
If i take Diablo 2, for instance, the whole plot would be unfinished without the add-on, as the main game finishes on a cliffanger...

 

[Grievous]

As I recall, Lords of Destruction only extended its plot so that it too can end on another cliffhanger ... with perhaps a bit more fanfare and explosions and less agonizing last-minute reveal.
But then again it always seemed to be designed with purpose in the Diablo series to make the player character always being a step behind the villain's plan, so having it ending on a cliffhangers seems fair enough.

When I spoke about disappointing story focused add-ons, I meant from the perspective of the recent years. Broodwar at this point is pretty much a relic.

Heck, even The Frozen Throne is a relic today. It's truly a shame that Warcraft never saw a proper RTS sequel.
I didn't liked how they actually continued on the lore and overall narrative through some MMORPG format. I mean it's just plain bizarre that a real time strategy franchise suddenly jumps ship and enters a new medium and all the past characters makes an obligatory appearance before getting killed off if it was deemed 'cool'.
By some miracle Diablo and StarCraft maintained their original format, but still, it's not like there is a lack of crowd interested in Warcraft IV ...

 

[AskWazzup]

Back on topic:
Other positive trends in modern gaming: prominence of orchestral music.

I know it may not sound much, but when you consider how the film industry has reverted itself into producing copious synthesizer nonsense or dubious orchestral work, it's quite a refreshing sight to see video game composers taking the roots and inspiration from decade old film scores and adapt it into the interactive medium, and I find such efforts commendable even if there is still a trip to go to reach the ideal state where the soundtrack blends in with the gameplay rather than being a symphony orchestra that is stalking the player.

Actually i think synthesized scores are better suited for computer gaming. The reason for that is that an orchestra cannot hold a note and manipulate it by changing the harmonic partials of every instrument, cannot filter the sound, cannot oscillate the volume by a wanted amount, cannot oscillate the frequency etc. Why is that important? Well, i think for the majority of the time you want an ambient score with long notes, so as not to distract the gameplay. You can potentially have a pretty neat orchestral ambient score (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbLRzabppus&hd=1), but this is much harder to write and still has the above mentioned shortcomings, as where with an audio programming language like csound (which i am learning at the moment) you have no limitations whatsoever and you can shape the sound in an interesting way, so that stationary drone notes do not get tedious. Though i'm not against using an orchestra, it's just that i don't want to hear the damn combat music sequence all the fu**ing time. The orchestral score should be used in key points of the game for added effect and none of that generic heroic music shitznizz also (of course this means the composer should be competent, so basically that will never happen in games ).

Actually not only music, but sound in general leaves much to be desired. Things like delay, reverb, synchronization and high quality audio samples, 3d audio effects could be much better.

 

[naossano]

About Diablo 2, there is not only the twist, but the fact that the whole plot implies that you have to kill three brothers and that only kill two in the vanilla games.
Beside that, that other brother benefit in the vanilla game of a lot more of exposition and plot involvement than the other two, and yet, isn't faced at all, without the addon.
So i really feels like that they purposly cut the plot in order to sell the addon.

 

[Grievous]

Actually i think synthesized scores are better suited for computer gaming. The reason for that is that an orchestra cannot hold a note and manipulate it by changing the harmonic partials of every instrument, cannot filter the sound, cannot oscillate the volume by a wanted amount, cannot oscillate the frequency etc. Why is that important? Well, i think for the majority of the time you want an ambient score with long notes, so as not to distract the gameplay. You can potentially have a pretty neat orchestral ambient score (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbLRzabppus&hd=1), but this is much harder to write and still has the above mentioned shortcomings, as where with an audio programming language like csound (which i am learning at the moment) you have no limitations whatsoever and you can shape the sound in an interesting way, so that stationary drone notes do not get tedious.

Although I agree, it remains unfortunate that such examples are currently uncommon; in most cases synthesized score behaves the same as an orchestral score, meaning that the synthesized music isn't composed by taking into account the possibility of not making the sound appear monotonous and acting like tedious constant loop, which unfortunately is the most common case, a singular soundtrack loop.

Though i'm not against using an orchestra, it's just that i don't want to hear the damn combat music sequence all the fu**ing time. The orchestral score should be used in key points of the game for added effect and none of that generic heroic music shitznizz also (of course this means the composer should be competent, so basically that will never happen in games ).

And yes, that soundtrack loop is most, Most loathsome in an open world sandbox title! I can't believe how could the designer overlooked such a thing. They design a gameplay experience that either warrants fifty plus hours, or multiple replays, or both even at times, yet could only conjure up two hours of music; an hour of which you'll be hearing constantly, another half an hour which you only hear at specific gameplay or narrative locations, and the final half hour is something you couldn't believe was in the game in the first place when you listen to the official soundtrack album.

Shorter single players shooters tend to plays itself out fast enough to not make you notice on the soundtrack quality but, say, a Bethesda open world RPG? Nightmare!!

Competent video game composers exists, though i'll admit they're not exactly numerous, and for the most part they always have a repetitive style to it from one game to another, but i'll stick favor them until the day where it becomes common that synthesized scores, or any scores for that matter, can be programmed into reflecting the player's action in a game, regardless of it being a scripted/automatic event or not.

About Diablo 2, there is not only the twist, but the fact that the whole plot implies that you have to kill three brothers and that only kill two in the vanilla games.
Beside that, that other brother benefit in the vanilla game of a lot more of exposition and plot involvement than the other two, and yet, isn't faced at all, without the addon.
So i really feels like that they purposly cut the plot in order to sell the addon.

Hmm, alright, I didn't considered that option before.
At the same time it could also simply suggest that they intended to keep Baal for the third future installment of the franchise, not necessarily reserved for the expansion.

But this being Blizzard, and with their fondness for expansions, it does make for a sound and logical theory.
Good point.

 

[Ilosar]

About Diablo 2, there is not only the twist, but the fact that the whole plot implies that you have to kill three brothers and that only kill two in the vanilla games.
Beside that, that other brother benefit in the vanilla game of a lot more of exposition and plot involvement than the other two, and yet, isn't faced at all, without the addon.
So i really feels like that they purposly cut the plot in order to sell the addon.

Lord of Destruction also ended on a cliffhanger: you killed the Prime Evils, but they're kinda immortal anyway, and the Worldstone that protects all of mankind has to be destroyed. That's hardly bereft of sequel hooks, and a large part of the third game's plot is indeed those events leading to humans becoming super-men.

By contrast, Diablo 3 actually ended it's plot, with only some outliers remaining to be dealt with. Of course this being Blizzard everyone knew there would be an expansion or two, but still.

 

[UniversalWolf]

FPS/Open World/blah blah. To me, its a design concept that is inherently flawed because too much effort is required to make it good.

I was just thinking about this as I played Risen the last few days, and I agree. A small, tightly-focused setting is almost always far better than a huge, open one because it's possible to pack so much more character and detail into it.